PRIVATIZATION AND CORPORATE WELFARE

Jeff Mole Independent

protecting the taxpayer and our natural resources for the benefit of Ontarians not the enrichment of privateers and multinational corporations

Jeff Mole has dedicated a lot of time and energy into the study of what government can do to help stimulate the economy and protect the environment. Jeff proposes a greater focus on outsourcing development of environmental projects to the community enterprise sector rather than creating bigger government or giving government handouts to private companies.

Business Support program

According to The Financial Accountability Office taxpayers gave private corporations $22.9 billion dollars over 5 years through so-call "business support programs". By comparison, the Liberal government invested only $4 million in the Social Enterprise Demonstration Fund.

"For all 12 business support programs, no attempt has been made by the province to isolate the impact of provincial support against what would have happened without provincial funding," the audit said.

"This means that the province has not attempted to determine if a company receiving a grant would have made the same project investment without the support, or a company investing in research and development would have still made the investment without the tax credit."

The PC Party under Doug Ford claim they would cancel so-call "corporate welfare" programs if they form government, but then claim they would keep others. They have no sustainable plan.

I support curtailment of these programs for the private sector and multi-national corporations. I suggest a similar program for the Community Enterprise sector would provide significantly better value for taxpayers.

nATURAL rESOURCES

Jeff proposes a greater emphasis on sensible development of nature resources (Including waterfalls) by community enterprise instead of privateers and multinational corporations.

Privatization of Road Maintenance and Construction

Road maintenance contracts were in jeopardy when Carillion Canada filed for creditor protection after U.K. parent went into liquidation in January.

Taxpayers are in the process of spending 130 Billion dollars on roads, bridges and infrastructure. Most of this work is being done by the private sector. How many billions are being syphoned of in profits? We don't know. We need a better model to reduce the amount of profit taking from the taxpayer.

I am committed to insisting that we start awarding contracts to the Community Enterprise sector to ensure that we have roads and infrastructure that is built and maintained safe and clear for our communities and the travelling public. This will provide better value for taxpayers.

HYDRO ONE PRIVATIZATION

The NDP proposes to undo the privatization of Hydro One. Hurray! The stock is currently trading slightly lower than the initial price. So yes, let’s get our shares back. However, we must then consider other ownership models to reduce the size of government and get better value for our assets and taxpayers.